Who Killed Jesus? A Palm Sunday Reflection

Historians tell us there were two triumphal entries into Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday. Jesus, riding a dutiful donkey, entered Jerusalem from the east. Pilate burst into the city in high military fashion from the west, riding a war-horse flanked by a column of cavalry. Jesus enters Jerusalem as a subversive prophet death-bent on liberation. Pilate parades through town in a show of force, reminding everyone not only who is in charge, but what happens to those foolish enough to resist the status quo. 

Two kings. Two kingdoms. Two radically different visions for the world. 

Pilate’s vision, like every empire from Rome to America, is a world ordered by nationalistic power, racial privilege, colonial subjugation, and economic exploitation. Jesus’ vision is a world turned upside down, one ordered by reciprocity, love, freedom from bondage, radical inclusion, and human equality. Which makes Jesus’ entry into the city that day a form of political protest, a kind of counter-demonstration mocking the ways and means of empire. One could even argue the “Triumphal Entry'' was an anti-war, anti-imperial demonstration. I wonder if the peasants lining the street that day recalled the prophetic cry of Zechariah as they waved their palm branches in solidarity with this coming king? 

“Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea, and from the river to the end of the earth.”

The temptation for Christians during Holy Week is to over-spiritualize the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, robbing these events of their power to change this world. Jesus was not killed by God, nor was he murdered by atheists or anarchists. “He was brought down by law and order allied with religion,” writes Barbara Brown Taylor. He was killed because he was a threat to the dominant order of things. 

“God did not kill Jesus. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion.”

From his first appearance in the wilderness to his last entry into Jerusalem, Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God, a shorthand statement promising God’s ways of ordering power, people, and prosperity were being inaugurated. “To his hearers, it would have suggested a kingdom very different from the kingdoms they knew, very different from the domination systems that ruled their lives,” writes New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan. The coming of this kingdom really would save us from our sins, the systemic and global sins of racism, nationalism, militarism, economic exploitation, religious fundamentalism, purity culture, and patriarchy. 

The last week of Jesus' life culminates in a confrontation with a domination system that is alive and well today. Over the next several days we’ll witness the increasing tension as the “Way” of Jesus challenges the ways of this world. 

As you relive the events, social action, and teachings leading to Jesus’ crucifixion, how might your understanding of the cross and resurrection change by rethinking this central question: Why was Jesus killed? Why is it important to redefine his death as a social justice martyr instead of a victim of God’s wrath?

Gary Alan Taylor

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Recommended Resources

One of the oddities of evangelicalism is what the movement has done to distort the meaning of Jesus. It is best captured in this statement from the Apostle's Creed, "born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried." The greatest life ever lived erased by a series of commas and malformed into a punitive atonement theory. But there is so much more to the historical Jesus: his mission, his social vision, his feminism, his disdain for the wealthy, his nonviolence, and his radical belief in the transformation of this world. To help you meet Jesus again for the first time, here are a few resources that have made a significant difference in our reconstruction journey. 

• The Meaning of Jesus by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright

• The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone

• The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg

• The Discipleship of Decolonization by Holy Heretics Podcast featuring Ched Myers

• The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr